Thomas Hine '69
The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager
Bard/Avon, $24.00

In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, J.D. Salinger's archetypal teen, tries to end adult concern about his behavior by saying, "Don't worry about me . I'm just going through a phase right now."

The same could be said, argues social critic Thomas Hine, about the way modern society views adolescents -- and it's a phase we'd do well to outgrow. "The teenager is a social invention, one that took shape during the first half of the 20th century in response to a society very different from our own," says Hine. "We live in a different world now, and we must reconsider how we think about the lives of the young."

The author begins this examination of the rise of the concept that the years 13 through 19 constitute a special "phase" of life with a true horror story: the New Jersey high school senior who gave birth in a lavatory stall at her prom, deposited her baby in a trash can, tidied up, and then proceeded to dance the night away. An explanation of her behavior was "close at hand," says Hine, summing up popular opinion. "She was a contemporary teenager, a member of a generation that's out of control."

Such a viewpoint is of surprisingly recent vintage. In 1904, psychologist Granville Stanley Hall defined adolescence as a scary time, with school being "virtually the only safe place for the menacing young."

And yet, for most of human history, the onset of puberty served more as a time that marked the beginning of adulthood than an event that "required" segregating the afflicted into a distinct subclass. Indeed, until the beginning of the 20th century, adolescents, who are, after all, at the peak of their physical capabilities, simply worked hard, found mates, and started caring for families. If teens had identity crises, a term invented by psychologist Erik Erikson, they kept them to themselves.

But with increasing industrialization came the increased emphasis on mental agility and a concomitant decrease in jobs that required more brawn than brains, says Hine. Such a workforce needed new levels of education, and the result was high school, without which, says the author, "there are no teenagers."

By bringing teenagers together in one place, high school -- the first public one opened in Boston in 1821, but near universal enrollment didn't occur until after the Second World War -- provided "a fertile ground for the development of youth culture." But times are vastly dif- ferent now, says Hine, and the dominant notion that the proper place for teens is in what amounts to custodial institutions needs to change as well.

"Teenagers are people of whom too much is asked and too little is expected," says Hine, arguing for a new social and educational system that enables teens to "figure out how things really work" and to better "imagine and begin to construct their lives . . . Once we understand that the teenager -- this weird, alienated, frightening yet enviable creature -- is a figment of our imagination, the monstrous progeny of marketing and high school, all generations will benefit."

Bryan Di Salvatore '70
A Clever Base-Ballist: The Life and Times of John Montgomery Ward
Pantheon, $27.50

The World Series is over, but sometime before opening day next April, baseball fans are almost certain to hear a team owner opine: "The results of the past season prove that salaries must come down. We believe that players in insisting upon exorbitant prices are injuring their own interests."

This familiar refrain, however, dates from the end of the 1879 baseball season, and while some aspects of the game have changed -- there was no pitcher's mound, and the umpire could ask players and fans for help on judging close plays -- then, as now, there was plenty of labor unrest. Leading the athletes was John Montgomery Ward, the Hall of Fame pitcher, and later shortstop and manager, whose plaque at Cooperstown notes blandly that he "played [an] important part in establishing modern organized baseball."

Ward's role in crafting the National Pastime is the subject of this biography, which examines the career of "one of the most forceful brains the game has ever known." In prose whose cadences often evoke the flavor of the late 19th century, Bryan Di Salvatore offers a portrait of Ward, a superstar who once won 39 games in a single season, pitched a perfect game, and garnered 2,151 hits in his 17 years as a "base-ballist." But it was his work behind the scenes that set the stage for modern professional baseball.

The author offers an in-depth look at how Ward, who earned his law degree at Columbia during the off-season, led players to organize the "Brotherhood," a union that challenged the restrictive contracts of team owners. In 1890, the renegade players even organized a league of their own.

Ward and the Brotherhood were soon defeated by the entrenched forces of the National League. The issue, however, never died, and in 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Ward a posthumous victory.

Chang-Rae Lee '87
A Gesture Life
Riverhead Books, $23.95

"In the end, I have learned I must make whatever peace and solace of my own," says Franklin Hata, the Korean-American protagonist of a novel that examines the compromises and costs an outsider must make to fit into a society. In this carefully crafted examination of a life, "Doc" Hata, who ran a medical supply business and was a pillar of the fictional town of Bedley Run, takes readers from his well-maintained and proper home through a series of formative events. All of them proved ultimately painful because no matter how hard Hata would try, he couldn't quite mesh with his surroundings.

There is a harrowing tale of World War II, in which Hata, who was serving as a medic with the Japanese army, befriends, falls in love with, but cannot save a young woman brought into camp as a prostitute. His attempt in this country to right that wrong by adopting an orphan fails as she grows up and leaves him. A love affair doesn't work out, and the business he spent a lifetime developing fails in the hands of the couple to whom he sold it.

But Hata may find a measure of peace, for his daughter returns with a child -- and a new role for him. As this melancholy story ends, the outsider is coming in.